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Illustrated title-])age of Philip von Zesen's 
JJcscriflioii of Ajiistcrdaiii 



"Che 

DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY 
ON THE HUDSON 



BY 
LUCY M. SALMON 



WITH SIX ILLUSTRATIONS 



POUGHKEEPSIE. NEW YORK 
1915 



./ 

•S27 



Copyright, 1915, 

by 
Lucy M. Salmon 



CI.A414076 

pol. 



OCT II 1915 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

This paper was originally prepared for the celebration 
of the Hudson-Fulton anniversary in 1909. Part of the 
material for it was collected in Holland, although it was 
of a character difficult to cite by "chapter and verse." 
Three weeks in Amsterdam and the Hague, a day in 
Utrecht, a trip to the Helder with a glimpse of the island 
of Texel from which Henry Hudson had sailed on the 
Half Moon, another day in Brill the high tower of whose 
cathedral Mary Princess of Orange is said to have 
climbed when William of Orange was leaving Holland 
for England, — this supplementing two previous visits to 
Holland, while it gave nothing in the way of discovery 
of new material, did give a picture of the material con- 
ditions out of which the Dutch West India Company 
grew that has helped the writer to have a better under- 
standing of the history of the Chartered Company on the 
Hudson. The illustrations secured at that time may give 
the reader an interest in the subject. The paper itself is 
but an attempt to re-state familiar facts and to gather 
into convenient form some of the data available for a 
study of ancestry. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Page 
Introduction. 

Our national ancestors 11 

Our indebtedness to the Dutch 12 

The Dutch as traders. 

Commercial routes of the Middle Ages 13 

Necessity for finding new routes 14 

An English pilot , 14 

The Chartered Company as a trader 15 

The Dutch West India Company 17 

Amsterdam in the seventeenth century 21 

Trade a failure without colonization 23 

The Dutch as colonizers. 

The Chartered Company as a colonizer 25 

The Dutch West India Company as a colonizer 30 

The patroons 31 

Difficulties between the Company and the patroons... 35 

Net results of the patroon system 38 

Kiliaen Van Rensselaer 39 

Troubles in Rensselaerswyck 41 

Patroonship in absentia 42 

Change of landlords. 

Long live the king ! 45 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Illustrated title-page of Philip von Zesen's Description 

of Amsterdam . . . Frontispiece. ^ 

It was the fashion in the seventeenth century for cities of 
the Netherlands to have themselves described and illustrated by 
some well-known writer of the day. The Description of Amster- 
dam is an excellent example of works of this class, and it has 
more than seventy copper-plate illustrations and maps which 
are invaluable records of conditions in Amsterdam in 1664 and 
earlier. The illustrated title-page symbolizes the wide com- 
mercial interests of the city. The coat of arms of Amsterdam 
appears on the right. The copy of von Zesen from which this 
illustration is taken was obtained at the Hague in 1909 for the 
library of Vassar College. 



The Dutch West India Company, Haarlemerstraat, Am- 
sterdam .... Facing page 16 

This building was occupied by the Dutch West India Com- 
pany in 1623. The approach to the second story from the side 
is a common architectural feature seen in Amsterdam to-day, 
and it may be seen on a few houses in the lower part of Pough- 
keepsie. It suggests the variation seen in the double external 
stairway used in the original construction of the entrance to 
the Main Building, Vassar College. 



Seal of the City of New Amsterdam, 1654. 

Facing page 20 

This illustration has been drawn from a copy of the seal 
on a plaque issued by the Holland Society of New York in 1913 
and it is an exact reproduction of the wax seal authenticated by 
the Society. "The cord of white silk" has been adapted from the 
seal attached to the Charter of the City of Albany given in His- 
toric New York, edited by Maud Wilder Goodwin, Alice Car- 
rington Royce and Ruth Putnam. An exhaustive history of the 
Seal and Flag of the City of Nezv York, edited by John B. Pine, 
1915, gives illustrations and descriptions of the seals used by 
the city. 

The monogram, G. W. C, on the escutcheon, stands for 
Geoctroyeerde West Indische Compagnie, or Chartered West India 
Company. 



The Dutch West India House on the Singel, Amster- 
dam Facing page 30 

The central building was occupied for a time by the Dutch 
West India Company. 

The Dutch West India House on the Rappenberg-, Am- 
sterdam .... Facing page 36 

This building was finished and occupied in 1642. It is now 
used as a warehouse. The device of the Dutch West India 
Company can be seen on the tympanum facing the street; the 
entrances at the two ends of the building embody the same ar- 
chitectural ideas noted in the building on the Haarlemerstraat. 

The Weepers' Tower, Amsterdam . Facing page 40 

This illustration is taken from von Zesen. When the 
Dutch sailors embarked on long voyages their friends bade 
them farewell from this tower. A bas-relief on one side repre- 
sents a woman weeping and a ship leaving the shore; it bears 
the date 1569. The tower stands not far from the central rail- 
way station in Amsterdam. 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY 
ON THE HUDSON 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY 
ON THE HUDSON 

Oliver Wendell Holmes tells us that if we are to 
educate a boy properly, we must begin with his 
grandfather. It is even more true to say that if 
we are to understand the conditions in the midst 
of which we live, we must study not so much these 
conditions as they exist to-day, as their origin in a 
remote past. As far back as we can trace our an- 
cestral tree, just so far in the past do we find the 
influences that have helped to make us what we 
are. The history of America does not begin with 
the adoption of the federal constitution that made 
possible a united country, or yet with the Declar- 
ation of Independence that made possible a new 
nation, or even with the discovery of iVmerica, 
whether that discovery be attributed to Columbus 
or to the Norsemen. Its beginnings are in Europe, 
and where the history of Europe begins, there be- 
gins our own history. 

Dr. Holmes does not specify whether he had in 
mind the paternal or the maternal grandfather 
of the bo}^ We whose fortune it is to have our 
homes in the Hudson Valley, whether temporarily 
or permanently, are confronted by a similar ques- 
tion, — one of our national grandfathers was Dutch, 
and one was English, while a long list of kinsmen 

11 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

connect ns with nearly every country of Europe. 
Shall we attribute to the one or to the other the 
origin of the conditions about usf The answer 
must be — to both and all. Yet it is comparatively 
easy to classify roughly the main sources of our 
indebtedness to each and to trace back to Holland, 
for example, many of the distinctive characteris- 
tics of the life about us. If then we are to under- 
stand some of the unique conditions that have 
prevailed for three hundred j^ears in the Hudson 
Valley and the fringe of territory on its borders, 
we must seek the ancestral home of its first set- 
tlers and organizers. If we are to understand 
why the Hudson River is bordered by extensive 
estates, why the somewhat infrequent towns on its 
banks have narrow streets with houses built on 
narrow lots, crowded together, practically without 
front or side yards, but with long yards in the 
rear; why many houses have stoops; why the 
children beg from house to house on Thanksgiving 
Day ; why we eat cookies and waffles ; why we cul- 
tivate flowers to sell rather than to enjoy ; why we 
have a Market Street in Poughkeepsie ; why as 
communities we give new ideas an intellectual as- 
sent but are slow to carry them out in practice; 
why the commercial spirit is so strongly devel- 
oped among us and the appreciation and love of 
the beautiful so comparatively weak, — to under- 
stand these and a hundred other major and minor 
characteristics that prevail in the Hudson Valley 
we must go back at least five hundred years and 

12 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

examine first the causes that led Europeans to 
seek new fields, and second the reasons that led 
them America-ward. 



During the Middle Ages the commercial routes 
of Europe both by land and by sea may be roughly 
classified as those that connected Europe with the 
Orient, and those that connected the Mediterra- 
nean countries with those of Northern Europe. 
For practically all routes the great focus was Con- 
stantinople. When therefore that city was occu- 
pied by the Turks in 1453, the trading countries 
of Europe faced an impasse, — the Turk not only 
blocked the way, but he had a long memory that 
went as far back as the Crusades, and there was 
no hope that he could be dislodged. New avenues 
of approach to the wealth of the Indies must there- 
fore be found. Heretofore the islands and the 
peninsulas of the great inland seas had played an 
important part in commerce, — they had served as 
stepping-stones to facilitate the passage from 
shore to shore and to render remote lands com- 
paratively near. By an apparently fortuous 
chance at the very moment that the old routes to 
the East were closed by the occupation of Con- 
stantinople by an enemy, the discovery of the com- 
pass made the mariner independent of the islands. 
Substituting the compass therefore for the islands, 
men ventured on the high seas. If the Turk pre- 
vented their approach from the east, they would 

13 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

circumvent the Turk and reach their goal by sail- 
ing west. Thus for one hundred and fifty years 
the one ambition of every great trading company 
was to find a competent pilot who should open up 
for them a new route. 



Among the most reputed of these sea pilots was 
an English gentleman, Henry Hudson by name. 
He enjoyed the friendship and the confidence of 
the great cartographers of the time and was in 
frequent conference with them. He exchanged 
notes, maps, and experiences with the great Dutch 
cartographer, Domine Plancius, and the merchants 
of Amsterdam invited him to a conference with 
reference to entering their service. But they felt 
that they could not act without the co-operation 
of their fellow merchants in other parts of the 
Netherlands, and while they deliberated and hesi- 
tated to act the agents of Henry IV. secretly en- 
tered into negotiations with him, hoping to fore- 
stall the Dutch and secure the services of the re- 
nowned pilot for France. Spurred on by the pos- 
sibility of losing Hudson to their rival, the leading 
members of the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch 
East India Company acted on their own responsi- 
bility and closed the contract with Hudson. It is 
an idle, but an interesting, diversion to speculate 
on the different conditions that might prevail in 
the Hudson Valley to-day had Henry Hudson 
closed his contract with the emissaries of the 

14 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

French king rather than with the merchants of 
Amsterdam. He thus entered the service of the 
Dutch East India Company and made his third 
voyage which resulted in the exploration of the 
Hudson River from New York to Albany. 

But while Henry Hudson had thus opened up to 
Dutch occupation an almost unknown territory of 
enormous extent and richness, he had exceeded 
the instructions given him by his employers, and 
he found neither a northwest nor a northeast pas- 
sage to India. What mattered it that the journal 
kept by an officer of the Half Moon after they 
reached New York Harbor says "This is a very 
good Land to fall with and a pleasant Land to 
see," and that the Dutch sailors who went on 
shore found the land "pleasant with Grasse and 
Flowers, and goodly Trees, as ever they had scene, 
and very sweet smells came from them,"^ — the 
Dutch East India Company took no interest in the 
country laid at its feet, and its own interest in 
the new world languished. A few years later its 
lost opportunity was seized by its rival, the Dutch 
West India Company. 



The seventeenth century has been called "the 
age of great monopolies and grasping charters." 
Foreign trade was not carried on by private initia- 

1 Robert Juet, "The Third Voyage of Master Henry Hudson." 
in Narratives of Nezv Netherland, ed. bv J. Franklin Jameson, 
pp. 17, 19. , J J , 

15 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

live but by powerful companies that received their 
charter of privileges from the Crown. England, 
France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Rus- 
sia and the Netherlands all had their great char- 
tered companies holding various trading monop- 
olies, chiefly in the East Indies. With the open- 
ing of the supjDosed western route to the Indies, 
corresponding companies were chartered by the 
various governments and these held the monopoly 
of trade and claimed the monopoly of their own 
routes. Yet while the chartered company flour- 
ished in special vigor in the seventeenth century, 
it was not confined to that period, — the chartered 
comj)any of South Africa of to-day is the historic 
descendant of the great companies of three hun- 
dred years ago. 

The object of the chartered company has every- 
where and at all times, irrespective of time, place 
or nationality, been invariably the same, — it has 
been to seek wealth for itself primarily through 
trade, sometimes combined with the nominal sub- 
sidiary object of Christianizing the native races. 
It has claimed the control of the territory in which 
trade has been carried on, but it has never con- 
cerned itself with the settlement of this territory 
except in so far as settlers have seemed necessary 
agents in carrying on trade. As the object of the 
chartered company has always been the same, so, 
while its history has varied in details, in essen- 
tials all the companies have passed through the 
same experiences, — all have quarrelled on the one 

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THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

hand with the Crown from whom they have re- 
ceived their grant of privileges, they have quar- 
relled on the other hand with the agents and set- 
tlers expected to carry out their plans, and all 
have sooner or later, voluntarily or involuntarily, 
relinquished their charters. The chartered com- 
pany has been crushed between the upper and the 
nether millstone. 



Of all the powerful chartered companies whose 
life history is comprised within the limits of the 
seventeenth century, none was more powerful than 
the Dutch West India Company. The States Gen- 
eral of Holland in 1621 granted it for a term of 
twenty-four years a monopoly of trading privi- 
leges in the new world, ''finding," as they said, 
"by experience that without the common help, aid 
and means of a general company, no profitable 
business can be carried on, protected and main- 
tained in the parts hereafter designated on ac- 
count of the great risk from pirates, extortions 
and the like, which are incurred on such long and 
distant voyages ; we, therefore, have re- 
solved that the navigation, trade and commerce in 
the West Indies, Africa and other countries here- 
after designated, shall henceforth not be carried 
on otherwise than with the common united 
strength of the merchants and inhabitants of this 
country and that to this end there shall be es- 
tablished a general company which we will 

17 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

maintaiu and strengthen with onr help, favor and 

assistance and for that purpose furnish 

with a proper charter and endow with the privi- 
leges and exemptions hereafter enumerated. ' ' ^ 

The Dutch West India Company to whom the 
charter was granted was made up of merchants 
residing in different parts of the Netherlands, 
and it was given the monopoly of trade in the New 
AVorld and in Africa from the Tropic of Cancer 
to the Cape of Good Hope, and all persons trad- 
ing in these parts without the consent of the Com- 
pany did so under penalty of confiscation of ships 
and goods. Great as was this concession, it was 
accompanied by others not inferior in point of in- 
fluence and power. The Company was given per- 
mission to make alliances and contracts with the 
princes and natives of the country, to build fort- 
resses, to appoint and to remove civil, military, 
and judicial officers, to promote the settlement of 
fertile and uninhabited districts, to make good by 
all such means as could properly be employed all 
losses sustained through cheating on the part of 
false friends, or goods or money improperly with- 
held from them, to apprehend deserters, to defend 
themselves if trade should be injured in spite of 
treaties, and to retain all prizes of war, subject 
to certain necessary deductions. Translating these 
somewhat veiled phrases into definite statements, 

^ A. J. F. van Laer, ed., Van Rensselaer Bonner Manuscripts, 
pp. 87, 89. The Charter is given in full both in the original 
Dutch and in translation. 

18 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

the meaniug" is clear, — the States General trans- 
ferred to the Company the task of continuing the 
contest with Spain by giving it the right to make 
reprisals on the high seas. How well it performed 
the task is evident from a report of its services 
rendered a few years later by the Directors to the 
States General, — they have had at heart the main- 
tenance of the true Reformed religion and the lib- 
erties of the beloved Fatherland, they have cap- 
tured the fleet from New Spain, amounting ' ' to so 
great a treasure, that never did any fleet bring 
such a prize to this, or any other country," and 
they have not only drained the King of Spain's 
treasury, but also further pursued him at con- 
siderable expense by depriving him of so much 
silver, which was as blood from one of the arteries 
of his heart/ 

The obligations incurred by the Company in 
return for these great concessions seem somewhat 
nominal and formal. It was required to transmit 
to the home government contracts and alliances 
made, to report the situation of fortresses and 
settlements begun, to send accounts of the equip- 
ment of the ships to the home government and to 
the Chambers of Directors, to render every six 
years a general accounting of all profits and losses 
in trade and in war, to keep its capital intact and 
not to admit new members, and to bind themselves 
(the Directors) by oath to conduct the affairs of 

^ E. B. O'Callaghan, ed.. Documents Relative to the Colonial His- 
tory of the State of New York, I., 40-42. 

19 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

the Company witli wisdom and witli justice to all. 

Their High Mightinesses the Lords States Gen- 
eral of the United Netherlands promised on their 
part to furnish necessary troops, provided they 
be paid by the Company ; not to requisition for its 
own use the ships, ordnance, or ammunition of 
the Company without its consent; exemptions 
from toll to any of the United Provinces for them- 
selves, their ships and their goods; exemptions 
from export and import duties for eight years ; to 
maintain and defend the trade and navigation of 
the Company both with money and with ships. 
They reserved to themselves the confirmation of 
appointments to office of the governor-general, 
and demanded an oath of allegiance to themselves 
as well as to the Comj^any, on the part of governor 
general, vice-governor, commanders and officers, 
as also an oath of allegiance by troops to itself as 
well as to Company, and they reserved a casting 
vote in case of disagreement in the Assembly. 

Special provisions of the Charter concerned 
the internal management of the Company, and 
two years later the States General gave their ap- 
proval to the plan of organization determined on 
by the Company for its government.^ How closely 
this organization was modeled on the federal or- 
ganization of the United Netherlands is evident 
from the following table : — 



1 This varied from the original plan in details rather than in 
fundamental principles. 

20 




SEAL OI' THI' CIT^• ()]• NM<:W AMSTI-.RDAM. 1()54 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

Organization of the Dutch West India Company. 

Parts Directors Assembly 

Amsterdam 4-9 20 8 

Zeeland 2-9 12 4 

Maas 1-9 14 2 

Noorder-quartier 1-9 14 2 

Friesland & Groningen . 1-9 14 2 

The States General 1 

9-9 74 19 

The original charter was supplemented by two 
further amplifications of the privileges conferred, 
all of these agreements having ' ' a seal pendant of 
red wax on a cord of white silk. ' ' 

Thus was launched on fair seas the great trad- 
ing monopoly whose history was so vitally con- 
nected with that of the great river valley opened 
up to the Dutch by the English pilot, Henry 
Hudson. 



At the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
not only the richest city in the United Netherlands, 
but the richest and the greatest mercantile city of 
all Europe was Amsterdam. In the prolonged con- 
test with Spain it had not suffered severely and 
its recuperative powers had been great. The mis- 
fortunes of the cities of the Spanish Netherlands, 
Antwerp in particular, had worked to its advan- 
tage, while the change in commercial routes had 
left stranded cities like Lisbon and Venice that had 

21 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

never dreamed of it as a rival. The persecuted of 
all religious faiths had flocked to it, enterprising 
merchants, skilled workmen, successful manu- 
facturers, distinguished artists had all found in 
it a place of refuge, and each in turn had con- 
tributed to its wealth and prosperity. Its ships 
were found in all the known waters of the globe, 
the treasures of the Indies were unloaded on its 
docks, its warehouses held the choicest products 
of the world, the business of Europe was trans- 
acted on the Amsterdam Exchange, and the Bank 
of Amsterdam, which quickly came to be an ob- 
ject of admiration on the part of all, was founded 
in the very year in which the truce with Spain 
was made. The formation in 1602 of the Dutch 
East India Company with a capital nearly eight- 
fold that of the English East India Company had 
resulted in such phenomenal success that it is said 
to have divided among its stockholders upwards 
of four times its original capital during the first 
twenty years of its existence and it hiad quickly 
raised Amsterdam to the very pinnacle of com- 
mercial pre-eminence. What could be more fitting 
than that Amsterdam should play the leading part 
in the organization and history of the Dutch West 
India Company which, furnished with the extraor- 
dinary powers that have been described, seemed 
destined to outstrip its rival, the Dutch East India 
Company? Wliat its opportunity was is evident 
from the table already shown giving the organiza- 
tion of the Company; and that the Company 

22 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

quickly availed itself of the opportunity is also 
evident from the records. The States General 
erected the territory known as New Netherland 
into a province and invested it with the armorial 
bearings of a count. The management of the 
province was given to the Chamber of Amster- 
dam, and Peter Minuet was appointed the first 
director-general. It is also evident that the direc- 
tors of the Company made unseemly haste to take 
up lands. Even before the charter had been ap- 
proved by the States General and while its provi- 
sions were still under discussion by the Company 
itself, several of them sent out agents to purchase 
the Indian titles to land within the province to be 
assigned to the Company, and thus be ready to 
become patroons as soon as the charter passed the 
seals. Samuel Godyn and Samuel Blommaert 
took up territory on the Delaware River and called 
their colony Swansdale, — this was the first colony 
in New Netherland. Michel Pauw took up lands 
on the west side of the Hudson in the present state 
of New Jersey and called his grant Pavonia, while 
Kiliaen Van Rensselaer took up the extensive 
tracts on the upper Hudson, — all these were mem- 
bers of the Amsterdam Chamber. Thus was in- 
augurated the part which the rich and influential 
city of Amsterdam was to take in the development 
of the Hudson Valley and the adjacent territory. 

There is an old saying that it is the first step 
that counts, yet the history of the Dutch West 

23 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

India Company is proof that tlie first step is in- 
effective unless a second one is taken. The Dutch 
West India Company had secured from the States 
General a charter giving it the monopoly of trade 
in America, but it was ineffective without colon- 
ists through whom trade could be carried on, — the 
half of the pair of shears needed its complement. 
But the affairs of the ComjDany were complicated 
by the assertion of trading privileges in the same 
territorj" claimed by English rivals; there was a 
difference of opinion in the Company itself as to 
the desirability of encouraging settlements, the 
territory was maintained at great expense and 
settlements were made slowly. 

The difficulties with their English neighbors on 
the east were temporarily settled through the in- 
tervention of the English king, and a polite corre- 
spondence carried on between Governor Brad- 
ford of Plymouth and Director-General Minuit. 
The Chartered Company had in its origin sought 
for itself only the advantages accruing through 
trade, it had been given the permission to estab- 
lish settlements, but it had been divided in opinion 
as to the wisdom of so doing. The majoritj^ of the 
Company had been slow to perceive that the con- 
ditions in an undeveloped country differed from 
those in one long established, — that while the 
Dutch East India Company had grown enormous- 
ly rich through trade with thickly populated coun- 
tries, their own dividends would be precarious if 
they relied entirely on trade with the Indians and 

24 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

that thus the territory could not become perma- 
nently profitable. For some years, however, the 
majority of the Company maintained its position 
that the fur trade with the Indians was a sufficient 
basis for it, or that if it did not yield an adequate 
revenue, it at least ought to do so. 

But the Company found, instead of revenue, an 
increasing burden of expense and dwindling 
profits. After seven years of more or less disap- 
pointment with the results secured through trade 
alone, the Assembly of the Nineteen inaugurated a 
plan for encouraging the planting of colonies or 
settlements in the territory over which they had 
jurisdiction. When, therefore, it determined on 
this step, its plan for carrying out the policy coin- 
cided with that followed by the States General of 
Holland and by the Crown in other countries. It 
was not in a position to undertake colonization 
directly, except on the Island of Manhattan, and 
it therefore devised a plan whereby it delegated 
to others the right of founding colonies, thus in- 
augurating what is known as the patroon system 
of the Hudson Valley. 



To understand the patroon system, we must first 
of all remember that while it had certain charac- 
teristics that differentiated it from other forms of 
settlement, it had, on the other hand, a far larger 
number of characteristics that it shared in com- 
mon with them. 

25 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

The theory of the ownership of newly discover- 
ed or conquered territory has always been a sim- 
ple one, — it belongs to the Crown to be disposed 
of according to his own best judgment. But the 
difficulties of administering remote lands by the 
king in person have been insuperable and since 
the early years of the seventeenth century a gen- 
eral process of development has been followed. 

The first stage has been the exaggerated reports 
of the wealth of the country brought back by the 
first discoverers and adventurers, — reports indus- 
triously circulated by friends and neighbors, re- 
produced in current drama and poem and finally 
reaching fabulous proportions. Marston, for ex- 
ample, in his play Eastivard Ho written in 1605, 
makes one of his characters, Seagull, recently re- 
turned from America, describe the wealth found 
at hand. ''I tell thee," he says, "golde is more 
plentifull there than copper is with us; and for 
as much redde copper as I can bring, I'll have 
thrise the weight in golde. Why, man, all their 
dripping-pans are pure golde, and all the chains 
with which they chaine up their streets are mas- 
sive golde ; all the prisoners they take are fettered 
in golde; and for rubies and diamonds, they goes 
forth in holy dayes and gather them by the sea- 
shore, to hang on their children's coates and stick 
in their children's caps, as commonly as our chil- 
dren wear saffron-gilt brooches and groates with 
holes in them." 

26 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

It has been but natural that the second step has 
been the formation of a stock company to exploit 
the new lands. Since the king himself has been 
unable to take immediate advantage of the reputed 
wealth laid at his feet, he has given an attentive 
ear to those who have asked the privilege of ex- 
ploiting the new fields in his name. Thus the 
chartered company has been formed, — a small 
group of men have subscribed stock and received 
a general charter of incorporation from the crown. 
The charter has secured certain privileges to the 
authority granting it, while conferring still greats 
er ones on those receiving it. Thus have been 
formed all the great chartered companies of the 
past three hundred years. Nor, as has been seen, 
has this manner of developing a new country been 
peculiar to any one nation. England, Holland, 
France and Denmark, all chartered companies to 
trade with the East Indies during the seventeenth 
century. The English Crown chartered the Lon- 
don Company with a dual organization entitling it 
to trade in Virginia and in Plymouth ; the States 
of Holland chartered the Dutch West India Com- 
pany to trade in America; Sweden incorporated 
the South Company to develop its possessions on 
the Delaware ; Spain granted the Chartered Com- 
pany of Seville a monopoly of the American trade. 
Country after country has begun in a similar way 
the development of its newly acquired lands. 
Trade has come first, but settlements have follow- 
ed hard in the wake. 

27 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

The objects of the colonists sent out under the 
chartered companies were various, — they came for 
religious freedom, or for political freedom, or for 
personal wealth, or to escape from adverse eco- 
nomic or social conditions at home. But the ob- 
ject of the chartered company has everywhere and 
at all times, irrespective of time, place or nation- 
ality, been the same, — it has been to seek wealth 
for itself primarily through trade, while the set- 
tlement of the territory has been a secondary 
consideration. 

The Chartered Company, with trade as its pri- 
mary object, has not concerned itself too closely 
with the character of the colonists settling under 
its protection and it has cared little about the ob- 
jects that have led the colonists to seek a new 
home. It has sent out vagrants, debtors and crim- 
inals, as well as political refugees and religious 
zealots; it has encouraged gentlemen of leisure 
and others of no occupation, as well as men skilled 
in various forms of industry. Is it strange that 
the Chartered Company has never been success- 
ful as a colonizer? 

Yet we must remember the difficulties that have 
beset the Chartered Company. Its task has been 
a two-fold one. It has had in the first place to se- 
cure as many privileges for itself as could be 
wrested from the Crown. These have generally 
concerned the right of governing the colony, free- 
dom of trade, a definitely stated share of the min- 
eral wealth of the colony and similar privileges. 

28 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

But the task of the Chartered Company was but 
half accomplished when it had secured a definite 
statement under the great seal of its own relation 
to the Crown. There remained the even harder 
task of arranging the inducements to be held out 
to prospective colonists. In some cases, as in Vir- 
ginia, settlers were induced to come out through 
the offer of passage money to be redeemed by ser- 
vice. Others, as in Plymouth, were offered a part 
of the proceeds of the venture. The Georgia Com- 
pany promised freedom from past debts. Massa- 
chusetts Bay held out the promise of freedom from 
the forms of religious worship established in Eng- 
land. The Dutch West India Company offered 
large tracts of land. But in every case the Com- 
pany reserved for itself directly, and for the 
Crown indirectly, the internal and external man- 
agement of the colony established under its pat- 
ronage. 

The colony might, as in Virginia, elect repre- 
sentatives to a colonial assembly, but it was the 
Chartered Company that gave the privilege. It 
might choose its own executive officers, but this 
favor was due to the Chartered Company. If re- 
ligious freedom was assured, it was at the hand of 
the Company. If the ''concessions and agree- 
ments" virtually gave to the colonists the absolute 
right of self-government, it was the result of a 
self-denying ordinance on the part of the body 
standing as an intermediary between the Crown 
and the Colonists. 

29 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

The privileges retained by the Crown in its 
grant to the Chartered Company were somewhat 
more vague and general in character. All laws 
made for or by the Colonists were to conform to 
the laws of the home country; a reservation of 
one-fifth of all mineral wealth discovered was 
often left to the Crown ; and final judgment in im- 
portant suits might be left to the Crown, — these 
were the provisions usually found. 

Among all the Chartered Companies none held 
out inducements to prospective settlers on so mag- 
nificent a scale as did our Dutch West India Com- 
pany in its efforts through a settlement to build 
up trade and commerce in New Netherland, — 
trade and commerce that were to redound to its 
own wealth and prosperity. It is possible that the 
Dutch West India Company was enabled to con- 
fer its privileges with a more lordly hand than did 
other Companies, and established an intermediary 
between itself and the colonists, as was the case 
nowhere else in America, in part because of the 
somewhat loose headship of the government of 
Holland. The inducements the Company held out 
to those who desired to undertake the responsi- 
bilities of planting colonies in New Netherland 
and sending cattle thither are embodied in the 
Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions drawn up 
by the representatives of the Company and ap- 
proved by their High Mightinesses, the Lords 
States General, June 7, 1629. 

30 




00' 

W 
X 

o 
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CO 

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Q 

CO 



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P 
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THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

The preamble states that they are drawn up 
for the benefit of the Company and for the profit 
of the patroons, masters and private persons who 
will plant colonies. 

What were the privileges thus granted with 
royal hand to the patroons! They were first the 
privilege of sending over in the ships of the Com- 
pany agents to inspect the country; all were to be 
acknowledged patroons who agreed to plant there 
a colony of fifty souls upwards of fifteen years of 
age within four years after giving due notice of 
such intention; ''from the very hour" that they 
make known the situation of the jDlaces they pro- 
pose to colonize, they shall have preference over 
all others to free ownership of the lands chosen, 
and if subsequently they desire to make another 
selection, they may do so after applying to the 
commander and council; patroons may fix the 
limits of their colony sixteen miles on one side of 
a navigable river, or eight miles on both sides, and 
as far inland as the situation of the occupants will 
permit; they shall forever hold this land in fief 
from the Company, together with the fruit, plants, 
minerals, rivers and springs, and exclusive rights 
of fishing, fowling and grinding ; if anyone founds 
a city, he shall have authority to appoint officers 
and magistrates and to use such titles as he sees 
fit according to the quality of the persons; they 
may dispose of these fiefs by will ; they may have 
the use of contiguous lands, rivers and woods until 
otherwise occupied; patroons and colonists may 

31 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

send all their people and effects in tlie ships of the 
Company, under conditions specified; patroons of 
colonies in New Netherlands and colonists on the 
island of the Manhattes shall have freedom to sail 
and traffic along the entire coast from Florida 
to Newfoundland, provided they return to the 
island of the Manhattes with all such goods 
and pay five per cent duty to the Company; 
if the ships of the patroons take prizes from 
the enemy, the patroons may retain two-thirds 
of the value, "in consideration of the expense 
and risk at which they have been"; freedom 
of trade, except fur trade, although, under certain 
conditions, the right to trade in fur is granted at 
places where the Company has no agent ; exemp- 
tion from all taxes and all export and import du- 
ties for ten years; the Company will not take 
from the service of the patroons any of their 
colonists, either man or woman, son or daughter, 
man-servant or maid-servant, — even if they desire 
to leave them, they will not receive them, or per- 
mit them to leave the service of the patroons with- 
out the consent of the patroons in writing, and 
they will make every effort to return to the pa- 
troon anyone who leaves his service contrary to 
contract; an appeal may be taken from all judg- 
ments given by the courts of the patroons for up- 
wards of fifty guilders ($20) to the Company's 
commander and council in New Netherland; pa- 
troons may ship cod to neutral countries on pay- 
ment of a duty to the Company ; they are entitled 

32 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

to all minerals, precious stones, or pearl fisheries 
discovered; and they are speedily to find ways 
and means of supporting a minister and a school- 
master; the colonies may each send an agent to 
the government to care for the common interests, 
anl all colonies must annually make an exact re- 
port to the home government of their colonies and 
lands; "the Company will endeavor to supply the 
colonists with as many blacks as they possibly 
can," but not to a greater extent or for a longer 
time than they think proper ; the Company prom- 
ises to finish the fort on the island of the Man- 
hattes without delay. 

Nor did the Company confine its benefactions 
to the lordly patroons, — it recognized that private 
persons might wish to settle with a smaller num- 
ber than would entitle them to settle as a patroon, 
and all such were given that privilege and might 
with the approval of the director and council, 
choose and hold as much land as they can properly 
cultivate, and fishing and hunting rights were ac- 
corded them. 

The Comj^any also turned its attention to the 
Indians, and decreed that satisfaction must be 
given them for all land settled outside the limits 
of Manhattes Island. 

The Company did not stop here, — in its zeal to 
found a perfect state it provided that the patroons 
must give proper instructions to colonists so that 
they may be ruled according to the rule of gov- 
ernment of the Assembly of the Nineteen. 

33 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 



The Company then reserved to itself the island 
of the Manliattcs and the lands Ij^ing between the 
limits of the colonies, announced its intention of 
settling the island of Manhattes first, declared 
this to be the staple port for all products and 
wares found on the North River and lands adja- 
cent, with certain necessary reservation ; claimed 
one-third of all prizes taken from the enemy by 
the ships of the patroons, the monopoly of the fur 
trade,' the transportation of all raw materials 
used by the colonists at fixed rates, and then hav- 
ing forbidden to the colonists the manufacture of 
all woolen, linen, or cotton cloth on pain of being 
banished and peremptorily punished as oath 
breakers, the Dutch West India Company sat 
back to take its ease.- 

Alas, the troubles of the Company had but just 
begun. It is related that when Louis XVIII at- 
tempted to create a new nobility at the close of 
the French Revolution that had destroyed the old 
nobility, he found many willing to be made dukes 
and earls, but none willing to be made anything 
else. That difficulty the Dutch West India Com- 
pany had laid up for itself when it sought to par- 
cel out the vast territories along the Hudson 
among a number of patroons, leaving to them the 



1 It is interesting to note that furs are to-day peddled on the 
promenades at Scheveningen, — a possible survival of the interest 
in the fur trade exemplified in the Dutch West India Company. 

2 A. J. F. van Laer, ed., J'aii Rensselaer Bolder Manuscripts, 
pp. 137-153. 

34 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

responsibility of finding colonists to enter in and 
till the land, — many were willing to be patroons, 
but few were willing to be colonists. It is possible 
that the Company vaguely appreciated this diffi- 
culty and that it was the effort to forestall it that 
led the Comj^any to attempt to square the circle, — 
if any persons had not sufficient means to take up 
a patroonship and yet (by implication) did not 
wish to go out as a colonist under a patroon, they 
might preempt as much land as they could culti- 
vate, provided the land lay outside the limits of 
that assigned to patroons. They were to be called 
freemen, or free merchants, they had liberty to 
engage in fishing, and to set up salt works, and 
they were under the immediate protection of the 
Company. Is it a wonder that many preferred, 
like Miles Standish, to be first in a little Iberian 
village rather than be second in Eome I 

So attractive had the exploitation of the new 
world seemed to the individual directors of the 
Company that more than one had preempted 
land within the territory claimed by the United 
Netherlands before the Charter of Freedoms and 
Exemptions had been granted. Alas, for them, 
their troubles also had but just begun when they 
took up land under the protection of the Company, 
even though this protection was re-enforced by the 
grant of the Charter of Freedoms and Exemp- 
tions, and even though this was itself re-inforced 
by a subsequent charter declaring that ''The Pa- 
troons shall forever possess all the lands situate 

35 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

within their limits, together with the produce, 
superficies, minerals, rivers and fountains thereof, 
with high, low and middle jurisdiction, hunting, 
fishing, fowling and milling, the lands remaining 
allodial, but the jurisdiction as of a perpetual 
hereditary fief, devolvable by death as well to fe- 
males as to males, and fealty and homage for 
which is to be rendered to the Company, on each 
of such occasions, with a pair of iron gauntlets, 
redeemable by twenty guilders within a year and 
six weeks, at the Assembly of the XIX, here, or 
before the Governor there. ' ' ^ 

Material was stored up by it for endless dis- 
putes. The patroons objected to obeying the rules 
of the Company, to the hea\y restrictions on the 
fur trade, to the presence of an agent to collect 
duties on furs purchased, because they were not 
informed when there was room in ships of the 
Company to carry their goods, because the colon- 
ists were required to take oath renouncing the 
privileges granted by patroons, because the Com- 
pany refused to reimburse them for losses grow- 
ing out of failure to atford sufficient protection, 
to the difficulty of getting cattle, — ' ' If I can get no 
animals," exclaimed Van Eensselaer in despair, 
"I shall not succeed in bringing over fifty per- 
sons," — because they were bidden to make brick 
without straw, since while desiring to colonize 
their estates they encountered the greatest diffi- 
culties in getting colonists, goods or cattle. 

1 Charter of 1640. 

36 



^ 
< ••'. 



■a -3 










THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

Thus endless bickerings and quarrels between 
the Company and the patroons seemed to be the 
only fruit of the elaborate scheme devised by the 
Company for settling its vast territories. The 
Company had carried on the experiment at a loss 
to itself. The colonies of the patroons had not 
been a success, the Company could not carry on 
an extensive system of colonization, and there 
were moreover internal disagreements as to the 
advisability of colonizing it. The question of even 
turning over the affairs of the Company to the 
States General was broached in 1638, but this was 
not done. It was evident, however, that some- 
thing must be done, and the result was a new plan 
that went into effect in 1638 whereby the trade of 
New Netherland was thrown open to all. This les- 
sened, for the time being, the disputes between the 
Company and the Patroons, but it did not end 
them. Another effort in the direction of peace 
was made, and as a result of the joint efforts of 
the States General, the Company and the Pa- 
troons, the States General ratified, in 1640, a new 
Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions granted by 
the Company "to all Patroons, Masters or Private 
persons who will plant any colonies or introduce 
cattle in New Netherland. ' ' 

Ten years later, in 1650, still a third Charter of 
Freedoms and Exemptions was granted, modify- 
ing somewhat the clauses relative to trade and to 
the administration of justice, but not affecting- 
land tenures. 

Z7 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

No one had given thouglit to the colonists, yet 
they too had had their heartburnings, — they had 
been in debt to the patroons for their outfit and 
for their passage, they were compelled to pur- 
chase supplies of the agent of the patroon, and 
they may have felt that the patroons were passing 
on to them all the troubles they, on their part, had 
suffered at the hands of the Company. 

Wliat was the net result of this elaborate plan 
to colonize the Hudson Valley in the interests of 
the trade of the Dutch West India Company! 
During the fifty-five years that the territory 
known as New Netherland was under the jurisdic- 
tion of the United Netherlands, from 1609 to 1664, 
but nine patroonships had been established, only 
one had succeeded, and ^'all the others had ceased 
to exist before the English came in, except Van 
der Donck's, which was moribund." Of the four 
directors of the West India Company who took 
up land under its authority, not a single one came 
to this country, no patroon had helped to dominate 
the province, only a few hundred acres had been 
re-claimed from the wilderness, and but six hun- 
dred and thirty-eight grants of land, varying in 
size from a town lot to a large estate, had been 
made to any one, either patroon or colonist, dur- 
ing the half century and more of Dutch rule.^ On 
the other hand, a long train of difficulties growing 

^ Mrs. Schuyler Van Rennselaer, History of the City of New 
York ill the Seventeenth Century, I., pp. 475-476 passim. 

The list of grants is given in E. B. O'Callaghan, Historv of 
Nezv Netherland, II., pp. 581-593. 

38 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

out of the system of land tenure had been laid 
up, — difficulties that lasted for more than two hun- 
dred years and came to a crisis in the anti-rent 
troubles of New York State. 

To all outward appearances, if "the Dutch had 
taken Holland," they had not taken New Netli- 
erland. 



One of the first members of the Dutch West In- 
dia Company to file a claim to land in New Neth- 
erland was a wealthy Amsterdam merchant, Kil- 
iaen Van Rensselaer by name. He had been a 
country boy, born and baptized in the village of 
Hasselt near Zwolle, but some years later we find 
him apprenticed to a relative, — a rich jeweler of 
Amsterdam; traveling widely in Europe in the 
interests of his employer, establishing himself in 
business on his own account, amassing a substan- 
tial fortune, forming a marriage alliance with a 
family of means in Utrecht, and setting up his 
household gods in a new part of Amsterdam, on 
the Keizersgracht.' 

He subscribed largely to the stock of the West 
India Company, was recognized in Amsterdam as 
a man of ability, of wide experience, and of prac- 
tical knowledge of many fields of business outside 

1 An excellent idea of the house occupied by a well-to-do 
Hollander, like Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, can be gained from a 
contemporaneous seventeenth century doll's house in the Suys 
Museum, Utrecht, and from two others, less elegant, in the 
Ryks Museum, Amsterdam. 

39 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

that of jewelry, — a man of affairs and of re- 
markable executive ability. As a director of the 
West India Company he urged upon his colleagues 
the necessity of developing the new territory 
through agriculture, merchant and trader though 
he was, and predicted the necessity of abandon- 
ing New Netherland if this policy were not pur- 
sued. Unfortunately for the Company, it was 
long before the majority of the directors gave 
even a grudging assent to his plans, and then he 
and his sujDporters were left to combat the opposi- 
tion on the part of the minority, — an opposition 
so serious as to wreck the other colonies started 
at the same time as his own. 

Kiliaen Van Eensselaer was willing, however, 
to undertake the responsibility of an agricultural 
colony if only the opportunity were given him, — 
he had been born in a country village, he had al- 
ready added to his own wealth by reclaiming large 
tracts of sandy heath lands to the southeast of 
Amsterdam, and his courage was equal to attack- 
ing the difficulties presented by the undeveloiDed 
lands of the new world. His agents quickly se- 
lected for him an extensive tract, mainly, at first, 
on the west side of the North (Hudson) Kiver, 
near Fort Orange, covering the present sites of 
Albany and Troy, and subsequently large addi- 
tions were made to the original grant. He pre- 
sumably knew well the peasants living near the 
waste lands reclaimed through his initiative, sev- 
eral from that locality were persuaded to try their 

40 




UJ 



w 

Oh 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

fortunes in the new colony, and contracts were 
made with other venturesome spirits from Nor- 
way, Sweden and Denmark, — in subsequent years 
colonists were secured from other foreign coun- 
tries, including France, England, and Germany 
from the Rhine to Pomerania and East Prussia, 
and as far south as Baden. Two farmsteads were 
laid out and it seemed as if the affairs of the col- 
ony had opened under favorable auspices. Yet if 
the general difficulties of the patroons were so 
great as to compel more than one to abandon his 
claim, they were multiplied four-fold in the case 
of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, beset behind and be- 
fore and on all sides with concrete troubles that 
would have downed a lesser man. He had great 
difficulty in persuading colonists to go out, a con- 
siderable number made contracts to go but failed 
to keep them, some even deserting as the ship was 
about to leave,^ the plague in Amsterdam had de- 
pleted the ranks of laborers, and there was an 
abundance of work to be found at home, — hence 
he found it almost impossible to get the much- 
needed workmen, especially carpenters and 
smiths ; every obstacle was put in the way of his 
securing cattle, and the Indians killed part of the 
herd finally obtained ; one of his new farmsteads 
burned ; the winter seed failed for one farm ; his 
tobacco planter proved inefficient; the freight 
charges of the Company were very heavj^, and it 
was almost impossible to secure transportation 

1 Van Laer, p. 56. 

41 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

for his goods at any price; lie was forbidden to 
purchase goods belonging to the Company, and 
forbidden *'to barter the necessaries of life for 
dairy produce and grain ' ' ; the restrictions on the 
fur trade were a constant source of irritation, and 
the contraband trade carried on diminished his 
profits by half; the change in the personel of 
the directors made a majority against the pa- 
troons, the local officers appointed by the Com- 
pany were his enemies, some of the directors were 
jealous of him, his co-partners disagreed with 
him, and demanded a division of the property, al- 
though they had never troubled themselves ''to 
break a lance for the colony in the Assembly of 
the Nineteen." ^ We may indeed question whether 
the honor of having a county in New York State 
subsequently bear his name was a sufficient com- 
pensation for these and many other trials attend- 
ing the possession of a i^atroonship. 



It is conceivable that other stout hearts might 
have encountered all these and- similar difficul- 
ties and triumphed over them as did Kiliaen Van 
Rensselaer, — Governor Bradford and the Pilgrims 
contended with famine and pestilence at Ply- 
mouth, — Captain John Smith met inefficiency and 
insubordination in Virginia, — ingratitude was 
meted out to Oglethrope in Georgia, — John 



1 Van Laer, p. 84. See Memorial to the Assembly of the Nine- 
teen, 1633, in van Laer, pp. 235-250. 

42 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

Locke's philosophical theories failed to secure a 
foothold in the Carolinas, disappointment and dis- 
couragement are shadowy forms ever attendant 
on the formation of new enterprises. But who, 
except Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, ever added to all 
these obstacles that of non-residence, — of man- 
aging a colony and a territory he never saw, at a 
distance of more than three thousand miles in 
space and four months distance in time? 

There has recently been made available for our 
use a collection of manuscripts from the pen of 
Kiliaen Van Rensselaer. It includes the letters, 
memorials, and instructions written by him during 
the thirteen years from 1630 to 1643, to his colon- 
ists, to his partners, to the Dutch West India Com- 
pany, and to the States General, and through this 
collection we are able to see reflected as in a mir- 
ror the great patroon of the Upper Hudson. It 
is but natural that the instructions concern first of 
all the general organization of the Colony, yet he 
does not forget to send a silver-plated rapier with 
baldric and a black hat with plume to Rutger Hen- 
drickson as a badge of office in his capacity as 
Sellout of Rensselaerswyck, and four black hats 
with silver bands to the persons to act as schepens 
and councilors of Rensselaerswyck; he sends a 
copy of the oath to be adminstered to the officers, 
and a copy of the Bible to be read every Sunday 
and on the usual holidays, and he appoints Brandt 
Peelen as reader. In the management of the 
farms, no detail escapes him, — if more butter is 

43 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

made than is needed, it must be preserved with 
salt to make it fit for shipment, though he consid- 
ers it more profitable to make cheese than butter ; 
a goodly number of hogs must be kept on each 
farm, — they can be trained to run in the woods in 
the day time and to come home at night, and if 
they must be tended by a swineherd during the 
day, it is not necessary for each farm to have a 
boy for that purpose, since one person can easily 
watch all the hogs together, and if the houses are 
too widely separated, the hogs can be taken for 
the night now to one farm and then to the other ; 
he knows just what the increase in the livestock 
has been during the year; that a cow has been 
bitten by a snake and died ; that certain chickens 
claimed as boot in a trade were not boot accord- 
ing to the contract and must be paid for; that 
Roeloff Janssen has grossly run up his account in 
drawing provisions, and that his wife, mother and 
sister and others must have given things away, 
which can not be allowed ; he plans to grind meal 
to sell to the Brownists toward the north, or to 
the English toward the south; he advises his 
nephew to be on the lookout for silkworms since 
they are likely to be found where there are mul- 
berry trees; he thinks a brickyard might be run 
with profit, but the clay must be taken from his 
land; he fits out a cargo for the colony and orders 
duffels from Leyden, — they are very expensive at 
thirty-five stiver a yard, but twelve pieces will be 
needed, half of them red and half steel gray, and 

44 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

he cautions his agent and partner to look out for 
the width, for the last duffels sent from Leyden 
were narrower ; when the shipment of the duffels 
was unduly delayed, he countermands half the 
order, but later orders in addition two pieces of 
Leyden grosgrain, double dyed, light liver color 
or gray, and two pieces of Leyden serge, first qual- 
ity, color at the discretion of the buyer — the low- 
est prices will suit him best; — he presses once 
more to know when the duffels will be ready, and 
in a fourth letter he again urges haste in the mat- 
ter of the Leyden duffels, since the Campen duffels 
are already finished. 

It has been said that Kiliaen Van Rensselaer 
never saw the colony that bore his name. But was 
there anything in Rensselaerswyck that he did 
not see? 



All the stars were in conjunction when Colonel 
Richard Nicolls, armed with orders from the Duke 
of York as Lord High Admiral of England ap- 
peared in the harbor of New Amsterdam in 1664 
and demanded the surrender of the Province. 

On the side of England, the restoration of 
Charles IL to the throne had consolidated and 
strengthened the nation against its rival Holland, 
while the English colonies had been put under the 
general care of a Standing Council for Foreign 
Plantations with instructions to take "all pru- 
dential means for the rendering those dominions 

45 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

useful to England, and England helpful to them." 
One of the first manifestations of this plan of mu- 
tual helpfulness was the grant of a charter to the 
Colony of Connecticut that united to it the pre- 
viously independent colony of New Haven, and 
granted to it all the territory from Narragansett 
Bay to Delaware Bay, including all the adjacent 
islands, — thus granting to the Colony mainland 
and islands already occupied by the Dutch under 
grants made by the States General of Holland. 

This grant was the realization of a long stand- 
ing insistence on the right of the English to this 
territory through priority of claim. Governor 
Bradford of Plymouth, as early as 1627, had, with 
much politeness but with equal firmness, insisted 
on the priority of the English claim to the terri- 
tory occupied by the Dutch, and had urged his 
Dutch neighbors to '^ clear the title" of their 
''planting in these parts which his Majesty hath, 
by patent, granted to divers his nobles and sub- 
jects of quality; lest it be a bone of division in 
these stirring evil times, which God forbid. We 
persuade ourselves, that now may be easily and 
seasonably done, which will be harder and with 
more difficulty obtained hereafter, and perhaps 
not without blows." 

In 1642 the English ambassador at the Hague 
had urged the English in Connecticut ''not to for- 
bear to put forward their plantations, and crowd 
on — crowding the Dutch out of those places where 
they had occupied," 

46 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

While the English leaders were thus asserting 
their legal right to the territory held by the Dutch, 
English colonists were going in and taking pos- 
session of the land, and were often warmly wel- 
comed by the resident Dutch authorities. English 
traders established themselves on Manhattan Is- 
land; English settlers came in from New England 
and from the southern colonies and settled on 
Long Island and in Westchester County ; in 1641 
the Dutch West India Company had granted a 
charter of freedoms and privileges to "a consid- 
erable number of respectable Englishmen and 
their clergyman" who had desired to settle under 
their protection. As late as 1661 the States Gen- 
eral of Holland urged * ' Christian people of tender 
conscience, in England or elsewhere oppressed," 
to settle in New Netherland. 

Thus by 1664 various causes had combined to 
make a large English element in New Nether- 
land, — a desire to escape from the vexatious re- 
strictions of New England, the opportunities for 
religious freedom and for trade, "a hankering 
after land." To many, therefore. New Nether- 
land had for a time seemed indeed "Vreeden- 
land, ' ' — the Land of Peace. 

It was therefore over a colony part English as 
well as part Dutch that Peter Stuyvesant was ap- 
pointed director-general in 1647. In his zealous 
efforts to uphold the authority of the Company 
whose deputy he was, he antagonized both ele- 
ments in the colony. Soon a petition and a remon- 

47 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

strance were sent to the States General asking 
them to take over the management of the Prov- 
ince and protesting that "a covetous governor 
makes poor subjects," while under more favor- 
able conditions New Netherland would '4n a few 
years be a brave place." In 1653 a convention 
met in New Amsterdam at which four Dutch and 
four English towns were represented. Nineteen 
persons signed the Remonstrance^ to the States 
General, protesting against the arbitrary govern- 
ment of the director general and of these ten were 
of Dutch and nine of English birth. 

The way had therefore been prepared for the 
occupation of the territory by the English govern- 
ment in 1664 in three general ways, — by the long 
assertion of a legal claim to the territory on the 
part of the English, by the presence in the terri- 
tory of large numbers of English settlers, and by 
the all but universal dissatisfaction with the ad- 
ministration of the province by the resident Dutch 
director general. 

On their side the Dutch had also unknowingly 
been preparing their own downfall. Their rule in 
New Netherland had been weakened by internal 
dissensions in the Dutch West India Company, by 
the quarrels between the Company and the direc- 
tors general resident in New Netherland, by the 
constant friction between the directors general 
and the settlers, — it seemed as if every man's 
hand was against every man. The Dutch West 

1 Given in full in O'Callaghan, Nezv Netherland. II., 243-246. 
48 



THE DTJTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

India Company, discouraged by these dissensions 
and on the verge of bankruptcy^ had surrendered 
its claims to all its territory on the Delaware 
River. Its director-general, Peter Stuyvesant, 
had antagonized the Dutch colonists in New Am- 
sterdam and aroused the hostility of Rensselaers- 
wyck further north. Long Island was in rebel- 
lion, difficulties in the Esopus region between the 
settlers and the Indians had weakened the col- 
onies there, while throughout the province the In- 
dians were restless and dangerous. Is it strange 
that when Colonel Nicolls appeared before New 
Amsterdam, offering most generous terms of sur- 
render, nearly a hundred of the leading burghers 
sent to the director general a remonstrance against 
further attempts to hold the province for the 
Dutch! 

''Thus ended," says De Lancey, ''the Dutch 
dominion in America, and thus forever passed 
away the great Batavian Province of New Neth- 
erland from the Republic of the United Nether- 
lands." Yet not so. It is true that the technical 
control had passed away but "the Dutch had taken 
New York. ' ' In the period between 1630 and 1664 
land grants of all kinds, from a patroonship to a 
single lot on Manhattan Island, had been made to 
the number of six hundred and thirty-eight.^ The 
house had been sold over their heads and they had 
a new landlord, but the rent was not raised and 
repairs and improvements were more readily 

^ See ante, p. 36, footnote. 

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THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

made tliau had been under the previous landlord. 
The ultimate owner of the property was no longer 
a company of Dutch merchants, but an English 
duke, — the heir apparent to the English throne, — 
yet Dutch nomenclature, Dutch architecture, Dutch 
social customs, Dutch laws, the descendents of the 
original Dutch settlers are still an influence, per- 
haps the i3redominant influence, in the Hudson 
Valley. The Dutch Church retained its creed, 
discipline, worship, lands, property, and remained 
unchanged in every way, but it was no longer con- 
trolled by the Dutch West India Company or main- 
tained by them, and thus technically it ceased to 
be the Established Church of Holland. 

Nothing in our history is more remarkable than 
this persistence of the Dutch influence in the Hud- 
son Valley, when the period of Dutch occupation 
was so brief, the number of Dutch settlers so 
small, the territory held by them so sparsely set- 
tled, and the influence of the individual settlers ap- 
parently so slight. 



And the manors on the Hudson ? It is probable 
that nine Dutch patroonships had been established 
in New Netherland. All but two of these, Rensse- 
laerswyck and Colon-Donck, had been abandoned 
when the English took possession of the territory. 
The Van Rensselaer estate descended to an heir 
of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, who took the oath of 
allegiance to the Duke of York and was thus con- 

50 



THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY ON THE HUDSON 

firmed in his possession of the property. Adrian 
Van der Donck died a few years before the arrival 
of the English, his estate passed to his widow, who 
re-married and removed to Virginia, and the es- 
tate was subsequently divided and sold. From it 
were formed the English manors of Westchester 
County. The transition from Dutch patroonship 
to English manor, from patroon to lord of the 
manor was an easy and simple one, — the oath of 
allegiance was taken to the Duke of York instead 
of to the Dutch West India Company, and the 
province of New Netherland became the proprie- 
tary colony of New York. When the Duke of York 
became James II, king of England, the proprie- 
tary colony of New York became, ipso facto, the 
royal colony of New York. The king was dead, 
and all the people cried, ''Long live the King! " 
The patroonships on the Hudson were Dutch, the 
manors on the Hudson were English. "But that 
is another story." 



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